


Mountie!Caroline

by Luzula



Category: due South
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, Environmentalism, Gen, episode rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: This is an unfinished rewrite of the pilot episode, under the assumption that Muldoon killed Bob instead of Caroline, and that she went on to become a Mountie.Er, it never got more than a working title...
Comments: 6
Kudos: 3





	Mountie!Caroline

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that I never posted this to AO3 back when I wrote it, so here it is...

"RCMP, Inuvik detachment, Constable Benton Fraser," Ben said, picking up the phone. 

"Ben?" his mother's voice said in his ear. "How are things?"

"Oh, fine. Just back from patrol, filling out forms. You?" 

"You know that dam project I was telling you about?"

Direct as always. "Yes." 

"Well, I think they're going too far now. I think they actually tried to bribe me so I'd keep quiet about it."

Ben blinked and pushed the forms to one side. "They tried to bribe a Mountie?"

"Not in so many words, so I can't actually nail them on it. But oh, how I want to." He could hear the frustration in her voice. 

Ben frowned. "So what else have they done?" 

"Well, they're trying to keep it quiet, but I'm pretty sure the dam is having some bad effects on the wildlife." 

He'd grown up in that area, even if he was posted elsewhere now, and he couldn't bear the thought of that land despoiled by industrial development. "You know, I have some vacation time I could take out. Maybe I could come down?" 

"Oh, that would be great--it's been some time. Buck and I would love to see you." 

***

Ben's plane from Inuvik to Whitehorse was late, delayed half an hour by bad weather, but Caroline had planned for this eventuality and had brought a book to read. She imagined her son waiting on the plane, probably doing the same. But finally, he came out of the baggage claim with a backpack slung over his shoulder and Dief at his heels. 

"Hi, Ben." She hugged him tight and kissed him on the cheek, then let Dief lick her hand. 

"Hi, Mom," he said, smiling at her. 

Sometimes she saw his father in him so much that it hurt, even after all these years. Bob had been around Ben's age when he died (when Muldoon murdered him), and he'd had that same uprightness and that dark hair. And a smile that had made her knees go weak. She couldn't see much of herself in Ben's looks, but maybe he'd inherited his stubbornness from her. Although it wasn't as if Bob hadn't had plenty of that, too. 

"So how are you doing up in Inuvik?" she said as they drove off. 

"Well, it's a small detachment, and I like that. And the area is beautiful, of course."

"But?" she said, hearing that he wasn't telling the whole story. 

He made a face. "I'm not really getting along with my partner. It's probably my fault as well as his, but--" 

Caroline frowned. "In what way are you not getting along?"

"Well. He's from Toronto, and he's having some trouble adjusting to small-town life. He keeps saying it's boring, and I, well." Ben huffed out a breath. 

"He'll probably transfer out soon. His type usually doesn't last long up in the north." 

She turned off from the highway on the road to their house, which lay a bit outside of town. They'd probably have to move in to town when they got older, but try convincing Buck of that--to hear him tell it, he was still as hale as the youngest recruits. 

Caroline herself had long since reconciled herself to the gray mixed in her red hair, the beginnings of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and the slight stiffness in her joints. Well, she wasn't used to being able to rely on her bodily strength the way Buck could, anyway--she'd always been a slight woman. 

The gravel crunched on the driveway, and there was barking from the house. Dief pricked up his ears, and Caroline braced herself for the inevitable pissing-match before the two dogs settled into an uneasy stalemate. 

"Best to let them have it out," Ben said, and let Dief out as Buck opened the door to let their husky out. They immediately began circling each other in the snow. Buck ignored them and came down the steps. 

"Ben! Welcome home." 

"Hi, Dad!" They embraced briefly on the steps. 

Caroline remembered the first time Ben had called Buck that. It wasn't that much of a stretch, she supposed, since Buck had spent a lot of time with them even before Bob died. They'd been so close, the three of them, and it had felt inevitable, somehow, that she and Buck would stay together, after Bob died. Closing the ranks. 

She sensed rather than saw Bob looking over her shoulder. "Beautiful boy, isn't he," she murmured. 

"Yes," Bob murmured. "Wish I could've known him." 

"Mmm." She glanced at Bob, and couldn't help smiling a little. Still in his Stetson, after all these years. She had never known exactly why he was lingering with them, and why he came and went, sometimes not appearing for months. But by now his ghost was dear, and familiar, though yes, sometimes as stubborn and annoying as he had occasionally been in real life. 

Buck looked at her from the porch, raised his eyebrows at Bob, but didn't say anything. 

Ben had never been able to see him. She didn't know if that made her sad, that he would never know his father, or relieved, that he was spared that complicated tie to the past. 

The sun had gone down, and the temperature was falling. Caroline met Bob's eyes, nodded at him, and then called the dogs to order, Dief having established himself as the alpha. 

"Come on, you two. Time to warm up and have some dinner." And they went together into the house. 

***

"So who told you where to look for evidence?" Ben asked, walking slantwise down the snow-covered slope. The dam was a huge construction, concrete and metal cutting across the natural path of the river, and Ben felt almost as if it loomed over them even at this distance. 

"Some of the Tsimshian. I think you went to school with one of them? Eric, his name is," his mother replied, scanning the area. 

"Eric Kitikmeot? Yes, he was in my high school class," Ben said, trying to sound casual, although he felt his cheeks heating up a little. He hoped his mother was too intent on observing the area to notice. Well, his reaction was ridiculous anyway--it had been years ago. 

"Now, look at this," Buck said from farther up the slope, and Ben turned towards him. 

Then he heard a soft _click_. 

"Get down!" he yelled, and instinctively threw himself at his mother, the shot already ringing in his ear. They rolled in the snow, and his mother made a pained "oof!" noise. 

"You all right?" Buck yelled. 

"I'm all right!" Ben yelled back. "Don't know about Mom." 

He heard a different gunshot: Buck's service revolver. Good, it would keep the shooter busy. 

"Mom, are you all right?" Ben said. "Mom!"

She made an inarticulate noise when he tugged at her shoulder. There was blood on it, and Ben's breath caught. 

"No, I'm not," she grunted. "Don't know how bad. Open up and look, then put pressure--" 

Another gunshot from Buck. Snowmobile noise. 

"I know," he said as he zipped her parka open. Shoulder, thank God. He wadded up his scarf, pressed down. She clenched her jaws, groaned. 

"Sorry, sorry," he said nonsensically. 

"Did she get hit?" Buck shouted. "Did she?" 

"Shoulder," Ben said. "Call it in?" 

"Already did. Caroline? Caroline, please!" Buck fell to his knees beside her. 

"Shoulder," she gritted out. "Think I'll be fine." 

"Shooter's gone. Had a snowmobile waiting," Buck said. 

"Well, I suppose this was meant as a warning," she breathed. "Think we're going to give up, do they? Well, I won't, at least. They shoot a Mountie, they're going to pay." 

Ben swallowed, his throat dry. His mother had had this dangerous job for longer than he had, but this proof of her mortality still hit him hard. He concentrated on keeping the pressure on her shoulder steady, and waited for the paramedics to arrive. 

She was right: whoever was responsible for this was going to pay.

**Author's Note:**

> So Fraser never went to Chicago, since no one died in the opening of the pilot. The rest of the story was to be about the resistance to the hydroelectric dam and the RCMP:s corrupt involvement in the dam. In the climactic scene, the Mounties are ordered to beat up on the protesters and Fraser can't take it any more, so he dramatically strips off his red uniform and joins the other side. The pairing is Benton Fraser/Eric Kitikmeot.


End file.
